


Misunderstandings

by storyofeden



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Heavy Angst, I apologize in advance, Implied Sexual Content, Miscarriage, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, No happy endings, Sex is mentioned/implied, The Harry/Hermione is minor and consensual and between friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyofeden/pseuds/storyofeden
Summary: Hermione never imagined this is how it would happen. Severus Snape supposes this is how his life was always supposed to go.Or, Harry has Lily's bright green eyes and not everyone gets their happy ending.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags! There is mention of sex and miscarriage, though I wouldn't label either as being graphic. This is heavy angst, and there is no real happy ending. I love Sevmione, but I might love all the angst even more.

He cleared his throat. “Your face is...the least beautiful thing about you, Miss Granger.”

Hermione froze, remembering his spiteful words two years ago.  _ I see no difference _ , he had said. She ran her tongue over her teeth, still remembering the buck teeth she’d had.

“Well, Professor Snape.” She used his official moniker on purpose, her tone formal. She grabbed her school bag and turned towards the door. “I suppose I’ll just--”

“No, it’s…” Severus paused, and Hermione heard him take a deep breath. Turning back to face him, she could see that he was uncomfortable. “You are the most interesting person I have had the pleasure of meeting.”

Coming from him, that was perhaps the highest compliment she could receive. “I find you very interesting as well, Severus.”

“You must continue to call me ‘Professor,’ Miss Granger. You know this. You are still my student and--”

She grinned, crossing the short distance between them and throwing her arms around his middle. After spending all these months with him, Hermione wasn’t going to let him backpedal now.

“Miss Granger, this is--”

“I think I love you, Severus,” she said into his chest. “I know that I shouldn’t. I know that it’s inappropriate, even though I’m of age. But it’s the truth.”

A moment passed, then Severus slowly relaxed, bringing his arms around her, his hands resting on her back. They stood like that for a few minutes, simply holding each other in a way they hadn’t before. It wasn’t untoward. Their hands never strayed. But the embrace offered a kind of comfort he hadn’t known in quite some time.

Hermione pulled away from him. “I should go. Harry will be meeting Dumbledore tonight, and...well, I should be there when Harry leaves, I suppose.”

“Yes, I believe Mr. Weasley should not be left to his own devices.”

She picked up her school bag again and looked back at Severus. “We’ll meet tomorrow night, yes? For another lesson? I don’t quite think I’ve perfected those wards yet.”

Severus nearly smirked. “You’re doing quite well, Miss Granger, but I will see you tomorrow as usual.

“Wonderful!” She grinned again. “See you then, Severus.”

He watched as she disillusioned herself and left his office. When the door closed behind her, a wave of sadness washed over him. “I believe I’m in love with you as well, Miss Granger...Hermione,” he whispered to the empty room.

A few hours later, the deplorable mark on his left arm burned with white-hot pain, and the last time he saw Hermione Granger, she was trying to revive a stunned Professor Flitwick.

\----------

Ron was gone.

Ron was gone, and the Horcrux hunt was hopeless, and everything was falling apart.

Ron was gone, and Severus-- _ Professor Snape _ \--had betrayed them, and all Harry and Hermione had were each other.

It was dark that night, and eerie silence spread around the forest. Hermione thought she could even hear the snow falling lightly on the tent, but surely that couldn’t be true.

Harry’s breaths were ragged and hot in her ear, punctuated by each of his thrusts. His hands felt all wrong against her skin. She had imagined hands rough and scarred from potion-making, not calloused from riding brooms.

His murmurs of unneeded apologies and intentions for a safe future fell flat between them. She had imagined the silky baritone of an older man whispering words of love, not her young friend making promises he couldn’t, and didn’t want, to keep.

He groaned his release and pulled away, a sad smile on his face and tears in his bright green eyes. Hermione felt tears slip down her cheeks in return, but she mimicked his smile.

_ Potter has his mother’s eyes _ . Snape had said absently one evening during a tutoring session. Hermione had asked him why he did it all, why he was risking his life every day.  _ I may not like the boy, but I will protect him if only for that reason _ .

She should have known. She should have known where his loyalties lay. They had grown close, but she could not compete with a memory.

Harry held her through the night, sobs escaping her throat despite her attempts to keep them hidden. She could hear her friend’s soft cries muffled in her hair.

This was it. This was all they had left. It was just the two of them now--the brain and the heart of the ever-damned Golden Trio. They were just two kids on their own, up against an impossible task, left behind by people they’d thought they could trust.

\----------

“The Mudblood has--” Phineas Nigellus started.

“Don’t call her that.” Severus snapped.

“As you wish,  _ Headmaster _ ,” Phineas Nigellus didn’t bother to hide his disdain and condescension. “The  _ girl _ has fallen ill.”

He paled. “What happened?”

What could have transpired? He saw her just three months ago when he delivered the Sword of Gryffindor to Potter. He hadn’t approached her, of course. While they had grown...close in the months he’d tutored her, he knew Albus’s murder was unforgivable.

Still, she had seemed fine from afar. Thin and pale from being on the run, but still beautiful despite the sharpened angles of her face.

They had the run-in at Lovegood’s house, but those involved had been punished for letting them get away unscathed. Severus may have been particularly cruel in his punishment because they had attacked in the first place.

“Well, as I understand it, she’s rather ill every afternoon. Having trouble keeping food down, you know.”

An illness? A stomach bug? That generally caused constant nausea, not occasional upset at the same time every day. And she was intelligent enough to pack plenty of potions for any sickness. So... _ No. _

Not Hermione. She wouldn’t.

“And she didn’t fully close her little bag,” Nigellus continued haughtily. “So I heard her cast the charm. You know the spell. From the way she started sobbing, I can only deduce that…”

The portrait’s voice faded out. All Severus could hear was the blood pumping through his veins, whooshing in his ears.

Hermione was pregnant. She was pregnant, and it couldn’t be his. They hadn’t been intimate. And if she was three months along, it couldn’t be Weasley since he’d been absent for weeks. Which meant…

He growled in despair, swiping his hand across his desk and shattering several glass vials. It meant that Severus Snape had lost another woman he loved to a Potter boy.

\----------

Pain.

Blinding, searing pain.

That was all she could feel.

Hermione was vaguely aware of her own screams, of Bellatrix’s maniacal laughing, of Fenrir’s hungry snarls and crude words.

It wasn’t until later that she realized. It wasn’t until after the unforgivables and the cursed knife and Dobby’s rescue. It wasn’t until later, as she was curled up next to Fleur in a soft bed, that she saw the blood on her old clothes and felt the ache in her core.

She’d lost her baby. When Harry and Ron found out, she would lose them, too. And all of this after  _ he _ had betrayed them all.

Pain.

Horrific, soul-wrenching pain.

That was all she could feel.

\----------

It was poetic, Severus thought, his dying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

Perhaps he should have gone this way all those years ago because of Black’s prank, and this is fate’s cruel way of mocking him. He would have died alone and ripped to shreds back then, and so he will die alone with his throat ripped out now.

Only Severus wasn’t alone. Suddenly, a figure filled his vision, a figure with glasses, and unruly hair. 

_ Of course, James had to come to save the day again _ .

But no, this boy had green eyes. Lily’s eyes.

_ It’s Harry. It’s Lily’s son. He has to know everything _ .

“Take...it...Take...it…” He rasped, sincerely hoping the boy was smart enough to recognize the silver memories flowing from his eyes.

Potter looked panicked until a flask was thrust into his hand.

_ Hermione _ .

Severus looked slowly to Hermione. She looked...radiant. Malnourished and dirty and battle-worn, but still radiant. Hermione’s arms were wrapped around her stomach as if holding herself together. Her middle was flat, almost concave. So it was true, then. Narcissa hadn’t lied about what she’d witnessed.

Hermione wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were cast downwards. He needed her to know that he forgave her, that he understood. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to tell her all the things he couldn’t before. He needed to warn her, to tell her that the memories he gave Potter weren’t the whole truth. He needed her to know that he loved her.

He just needed her to look at him.

“Look...at....me…” he whispered.

But instead of warm brown eyes, he was met with a worried green gaze.

_ Potter has his mother’s eyes _ , Snape thought absently, the poison and blood loss working in tandem to drain him of life.  _ Lily’s eyes _ .

\----------

“Are you finished with lunch, Severus?” Hermione asked.

The little boy nodded.

“Alright,” she waved her wand and sent the dirty dishes into the sink. “What do you say we go upstairs and find a good book?”

He nodded and followed her the stairs and into the library. Hermione smiled, knowing the four-year-old would be quiet as a mouse on the stairs, so the “mean picture” didn’t wake up.

“Okay, Severus,” Hermione sat down on the small couch in the corner of the room. Why don’t you pick out a book for us to read? I have it on good authority that you’re favorite story is about a Hippogriff named--”

“Aunt Hermione?” The boy stood in front of her, looking confused. “Why do you call me Severus? Everyone else calls me Albus or just Al. But you call me by my middle name. Why do you do that?”

“Well,  _ Al _ ,” she smiled sadly as the boy giggled and climbed onto her lap. “Instead of reading today, why don’t we just sit here, and I’ll tell you a story?”

He settled against her, leaning his head on her shoulder. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Now, this is the story of a very brave man that your dad and I used to know.”

“And Mum and Uncle Ron, too?”

“Yepp. Your Mum and Uncle Ron, too,” she kissed the top of his head and wrapped her arms around him. “This is the story of the bravest man we ever knew. His name was Severus Snape…”

By the end of the story, little Albus was smiling in his sleep, and Hermione had tears in her eyes. She had left out the genuinely terrifying parts, not wanting to traumatize the boy.

And, of course, she’d left out her part of the story. Severus Snape deserved to be remembered for doing something truly remarkable in the memory of a beloved friend. He deserved to be lauded for his actions during the war and the memories Harry witnessed in the Pensieve.

He didn’t deserve to be remembered for a slew of schoolgirl dreams and misunderstandings.


End file.
